Complicated
by obedientlittlevictor
Summary: Or how maybe Auggie should have skipped Sri Lanka. It's always complicated.
1. Chapter 1

They make it two full months of traveling the world together before Natasha realizes she can't live with a blind boyfriend. Or maybe any boyfriend. Or maybe just him.

Auggie doesn't overanalyze this point too much, mostly because he gets frighteningly drunk and stays that way for days on end. He tells the front desk at the hotel to put another month on his credit card for the room, so time doesn't matter to him anymore. It's not like he has responsibilities anyway. No, he did a great job of running away from all of that.

They had a pretty good run, he thinks one night over a cold chicken sandwich washed down with a bottle of room service whiskey in his unmade hotel bed. They had done the stereotypical touristy things in DC for a week before jetting off to the Alps. Natasha always did like the cold, and December in Switerland had allowed her to get her fix. It's probably worth noting that Natasha spent most of her days on the slopes while Auggie did freelance website development in their cabin. But they were happy. Honeymoon period happy, he realizes now.

They went east through Northern Europe to see the sights and drink vodka and dance, in Natasha's case; he wasn't a big fan of dancing. They dropped down to Turkey for two weeks, Dubai for four days before the Arabic makes Auggie's nerves stand on end in memory of Iraq, then Sri Lanka for Auggie's preference of warm beaches and soothing ocean waves.

He should have seen it coming. Natasha had been on edge since declaring she felt too cooped up and tied down in Dubai when Auggie refused to go out, irritable when Auggie didn't automatically agree to go to her hometown next, frustrated at Auggie's insistence that a former CIA operative who was a big player in the Belenko shit show should not be anywhere near Russia for awhile.

Auggie had forgotten how she demanded her freedom with the same intense manner that she demanded everything else: her way.

Natasha leaves him in the middle of the night when they're at their beachfront hotel in Sri Lanka. The irony isn't lost on him. This is where it all ends for him. This was where it all began for Annie. What's with Sri Lankan beaches and significant others (lovers? loves of their lives?) racing off without a word in the middle of the night?

To be fair, Natasha did send a text message the next morning, after she had already boarded a flight to wherever her life led her next. She turned his phone on silent so he wouldn't wake up to the sound and try to stop her. Of course, Auggie tried to trace the exact location that she had sent the text from, so he could find her exact flight. Nothing. He managed to hack into every airline's system in a time so long his former self would be ashamed. Still nothing.

Either Natasha wasn't using her real passport, which was a distinct possibility, or she paid off someone to let her on board without record, which is a bit more complicated but still something she could do, or she hacked the airline after she got on the plane to erase her existence. The final option was most logical. She beat him at his own game.

It was hardly his own game anymore, though. He hadn't hacked anything since he tossed his resignation papers on Joan's desk and offered a shy, almost apologetic smile at her pleas to reconsider. Auggie had balked at her immediate and insistent begging. Yes, Joan Campbell had begged. He had shaken his head and thought of Deckard's words of not letting his life be filled with regrets. Natasha was his future, not the CIA, and he had told Joan as much.

Auggie realizes, during one of his few stark sober moments, he didn't have anything. He said his goodbyes and burned his bridges. He has nothing and he is nothing.

_I can't do this, Auggie. It's too complicated._

And with that, it was all over. A simple enough note. Natasha knew how to stay hidden when she was on the run from several governments. She wouldn't have a problem hiding from him, and he is well aware of that fact.

Minutes or weeks later, another note flashes through his mind, one he had never seen, but one he was too familiar with. Suddenly the pain is fresher than the alcohol-infused vomit on the floor next to his bed, but Auggie can't stop laughing. It's always complicated.

_Forgive me. The truth is complicated._


	2. Chapter 2

Annie is hesitant to head to Sri Lanka. After all of the shit with Ben, she had decided to write off the entire country altogether.

But after getting an encrypted text from a phone that is registered within the CIA, Annie knows that she should at least try to see what is happening.

_Mingus has fallen off the grid before, but this is something else. Sri Lanka._

Annie suspects it's Eric Barber who sent the text, but she doesn't want to call him out on it. She isn't exactly sure how to anyway, not off the top of her head, even if she did want to get in contact with him.

She and Ryan both are out of the intelligence business. It's almost surreal, how quickly it all happened. Ryan liquidated what was left of McQuaid Security, paid everyone a hefty severance bonus, and they hightailed it out of Washington.

They had planned to marry on a beach in St. Lucia, but Annie called it off at the last second. She didn't give Ryan a reason, and he only smiled and said, "Take your time" in a tone so gentle and loving that it brought tears to Annie's eyes. Instead, they spent the rest of the week scuba diving and sailing the clear waters before returning to the Capitol.

"Annie," Ryan's voice breaks the silence and Annie drops her phone to the granite counter top in surprise. "Hey, sorry there. What's going on?"

Annie tries not to feel guilty as she deftly lies, "An old friend of mine from my post-grad traveling days suggested a little reunion back in Sri Lanka!"

She almost winces at the amount of false cheer injected into her voice. If Ryan catches on to the lie, he doesn't give any indication. He steps closer and presses his hand against the small of her back, drawing her in against his body.

"Are you going to go?"

"I don't know," Annie pretends to think about it. "What do you think?"

"You should go. I know it's crazy busy here," Ryan breaks into a smile because they only thing they've done is cook elaborate meals in their pajamas and christen every flat surface and some vertical surfaces of his home, "but you should find some time for yourself."

Annie laughs at his sarcasm. The thing that Annie loved - yes, loved - about Ryan was that he always supports her, no arguments, no questions, just unconditional support.

"Well, if you're so insistent on getting me out of your house..."

"Our house," Ryan corrects automatically. Annie pecks his lips and nods. She loves his home because it's beautiful and he's there, but it doesn't feel like her own home. To be honest, nothing has felt like home in a long time.

"Then I guess I should go. I'll book the flight right now." Annie steps towards her purse to get her wallet but Ryan catches her wrist.

"I'll pay."

Annie knows that he means it. He would pay for anything and everything for the rest of her life if only she would let him. She shakes her head, because if she's going to lie to him about her real reason to go to Sri Lanka, she isn't going to make him enough of a fool to pay for it.

"Nope. I've got it. It's my girls' trip and I would like to pay for it." Annie sticks her chin up mock defiantly and Ryan laughs. They do a lot of that together, laughing. They don't have many responsibilities, so it's easy to be carefree. Laughter always comes when it's carefree.

"Whatever you want, dear. Use my airline points to upgrade to first class, at least. It's a long flight to Colombo," Ryan points out. Annie's eyes widen when she realizes she doesn't even know which city Auggie is in. Barber had only sent the country, not a city, or, even more helpful, a neighborhood.

She recovers quickly and shuffles through her credit cards before walking toward her laptop on the dining room table. "I just want to relive my college days."

Ryan raises his eyebrows and follows her. "Really now? You may want to take a shot of cheap vodka off my body, just to help you relive your college days."

Annie lets out a shocked bark of laughter. He never seemed to stop surprising her with his humor. She sets her card down and steps towards him. He meets her halfway and lifts her onto the dark wood table.

_You can lie to someone and still love them_, Annie repeats in her mind until Ryan makes her lose all coherent thought.


	3. Chapter 3

The problem, Annie thinks to herself as her Sri Lankan bus bumps over the potholes in the road from Bandaranaike International Airport, is that she will always be a spy. Maybe even before being a sister, a friend, a lover, she is a spy. And because she is a spy, she knows how to find people who don't want to be found.

She replies to the text from the Langley number with "Coordinates?" Instead of receiving the actual coordinates of Auggie's last known location, she receives "colombo sry."

That's the best she has to go off of. A city with a population of 5.6 million people plus millions of tourists fluttering in and out of the city for the beautiful beaches and cheap resorts.

Good thing she is a spy.

And even better that Annie can think like Auggie would think. He loves the beach, even before he went blind, he had always loved the beach. To make it easy on Natasha, he would want their hotel within walking distance of the beach. A place with wifi for both of them. He has more than enough money to afford a decent hotel, so hostels and motels are out of the question.

Before long, Annie has a feasible list of hotels, and even with hotels' privacy policies, Sri Lanka is reliable on the bribery of their people for information. She would be able to find out the hotel room number of a blind American for under $5.

And she does.

The Ozo Colombo Hotel, Room 1220.

Annie books a hotel room on the same floor under a fake name and pays in cash, claiming that her credit card was stolen at the airport. The rooms are pristine and the sound of the ocean is soothing enough to almost lull her to sleep, despite her mostly self-appointed mission to find out what the fuck is going on with Auggie.

Instead, she changes into a breezy skirt and tank top then steps barefoot out of her room. She waits for a few minutes in the hallway outside Auggie's until she sees a maid, and explains with her limited knowledge of Sinhalese that she's so embarrassed but in her excitement to take a picture of the extravagant hotel lobby, she locked herself out of her room. The maid laughs and pats Annie on the shoulder, sufficed with Annie's pretend chagrined look.

That's all it takes for the maid to swipe her keycard into Auggie's door, almost too easy. Annie nods her thanks before carefully stepping foot into the hotel suite that has been Auggie's primary residence for nearly three weeks.

To say that she is shocked would be one hell of an understatement.

Clothes are strewn about the main room, across couches and chairs, the small dining table, the floor. To-go containers and room service trays cover every other available surface, food in various stages of spoiling.

What surprises her most are the bottles of alcohol littering the floor. All empty. All whiskey. Annie can't even remember a time that she had seen Auggie drinking whiskey, but that seems to be his drink of choice now.

Silent in her entrance, she moves further toward the separate bedroom, door slightly ajar. It takes all of her training not to run straight into the room when she sees Auggie on the bed. Instead, she takes it all in, analyzing everything in the way that her instinctual training forces her to. Auggie is sprawled diagonally across the queen sized bed, clad only a pair of boxers with the hotel's thick white comforter strewn mostly across the floor.

Annie pads over to the bottom of the bed but doesn't move to sit down. She fights the urge to run her fingers through Auggie's tangled dark curls that have grown far longer than she's ever seen, but she keeps her hands by her side.

Clearing her throat and hoping that will wake him, Annie suddenly realizes something. She has no fucking clue what she's supposed to do from here. There haven't been many times in Annie Walker's life where she isn't sure of what she's doing, even if the plan is to just go with the flow. She truly and wholeheartedly does not know how she's supposed to handle being with Auggie again.

Auggie barely stirs, and it's a testament to how drunk he is and has been that all of his training didn't wake him when Annie opened the front door of his room. She knows better than to reach out and touch him, but she does move closer.

"Auggie, it's me," Annie says, her voice stronger and more solid than she actually feels. Everything she expected is suddenly ridiculous, naive, childish even. She doesn't expect him to be completely fine, given how he seems to have dropped off the grid entirely, even to Langley. She doesn't expect Auggie to want to go out for drinks and catch up. No, she doesn't expect to be welcomed with open arms and a hug upon seeing him.

It's as if she is having an out of body experience. She doesn't expect to be flipped on her back with Auggie's forearm cutting off the oxygen to her lungs either.


	4. Chapter 4

All of the training in the world couldn't have helped Annie in that exact moment when her vision goes black around the edges and for a second she wonders if dying like this is her penance for every evil thing she's ever done, but her self-preservation instincts kick in and she drives her knee into Auggie's ribs.

She catches him off guard just enough that she can roll out from under him and onto the floor. She coughs and stutters and tears blur her eyes as she shuffles back until she slams against the hotel wall. She manages to wheeze out Auggie's name, she thinks, because he pauses right before he charges at her again.

"Annie?" His voice sounds like it hasn't been used in ages, a jumbled croak coated with whiskey. She nods before she realizes he can't see her, but his eyes are still wildly darting around the room.

"Hey there, Auggie," Annie whispers, still desperately trying to catch her breath.

He looks at her with complete disbelief on his face before turning around and slamming his fist through the wall. The noise startles her, but not as much as the fact that Auggie clearly has no regard for his health and safety anymore. He doesn't care if he gets hurt. That terrifies her. Everything about this new Auggie scares her, and after these past few years of being a spy, it takes a lot to truly scare her.

His ribs are starting to turn red by the time Annie blinks her vision clear and can breathe normally again. Auggie drops down to the edge of his bed before running his already-bruised hand through his hair.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Walker?" Auggie lets his lips twist into a sardonic parody of a real grin. "Or is it McQuaid by now?"

Annie knows he isn't actually asking, probably doesn't actually care, but she answers anyway. She injects an attempt at poise into her voice. "It's Walker. I called off the wedding at the last minute."

Auggie stands up and walks to the dresser near his bed and pulls out a pair of rumpled gym shorts. He slips them on and Annie tries not to think about how loose they are on his thinner, paler body. Annie wonders the last time he's been outside.

"Now why would you go and do something that, Annie?" He takes a long pull from the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the nightstand and raises an eyebrow expectantly.

"Why did you and Tash end?" Annie counters, and judging by how terrible Auggie looks, she knows it isn't a fair question. But she suddenly has fire in her veins and rage pulsing through with every heartbeat. She didn't travel halfway around the world for _this_ man; he's nothing like the Auggie she said goodbye to. "Did you give up on her or did she decide to quit you?"

"Tash and I gave it an honest go, you know," Auggie says, words slurring together from the booze. He sounds so small as he says it, as if he needed to convince the world that he did the right thing. She's still infuriated, but her anger can't be directed at Auggie anymore. She feels nothing but pity for him.

"I know," Annie replies instead of asking anything else. She wonders if their own relationship had been an honest go too. If they could say that they honestly tried their hardest to make it work. She thinks she could have tried harder.

Auggie rolls onto his side and curls in on himself on top of the covers as if he were trying to shield himself from his thoughts. He laughs mirthlessly. "It's always complicated."

It sounds almost like a phrase he had rehearsed, something he repeated to himself until he almost believed it. Annie doesn't have to wonder what he means by that. Relationships are complicated.

"Not always," Annie tries to argue, but she must not seem very convincing when Auggie snorts from his place on the bed. "I think for people like us, it's _usually_ complicated–"

"People like us?" Auggie spits out venomously. "Do we _really_ have anything in common anymore?"

"No, I guess not," Annie shrugs and moves to sit on the other side of the bed. She calculates her next words carefully. She doesn't want to push him over the edge, but she needs to see that he still has some hint of the old Auggie in him.

"I'm not some washed-out drunk attempting to drown my demons in a foreign country. Is it working for you, Auggie? Because it looks to me like you failed pretty spectacularly."


	5. Chapter 5

By the look of sheer disbelief on Auggie's face, Annie thinks maybe she should have tried to be more delicate. But they didn't work so well together because they pulled punches with each other.

"That the worst you've got, Walker?" Auggie taunts. It sounds vicious and cruel. He swallows down another mouthful of whiskey and she tries not to wince.

"No." And it's the truth. If she wanted to match him for verbal brutality, she could. She still knows just how to destroy him, just like he knows how to destroy her. "No, it's not, but I didn't come here to insult you."

"Then why _did_ you come here? Why are you here now?" His tone changes into something more calm, almost like the Auggie she knew. His soldier voice is there, commanding and solid, demanding her to confess everything.

So she does. If he wants her honesty, he will have to deal with receiving it.

"I was... asked to check up on you. When you walked out, when I let you walk out," she starts but pauses. "You were moving on to a life without all the bullshit of the Agency, a life without fearing your imminent death, a life without me. The last thing I wanted was to get in your way. So I stayed out of it.

"I made a good life too, Auggie. Ryan and I are in a good place. We're finding our way through the world where we aren't being shot at daily, and it's good. I wanted that goodness for you too. I figured that you wouldn't want the remnants of every bad memory hanging around you."

Annie stops rambling to see if Auggie has anything to add. He doesn't, judging by the way he's slouching carelessly against the headboard of the bed. His eyes are closed, and frankly she doesn't know if he's even awake. She throws both legs on top of the well-used comforter and sits cross-legged, elbows on her knees, and just watches him. It's been too long since she's just been able to look at him.

"You weren't a bad memory." His voice catches her so off guard that she startles, and at that his lips twitch in something that might have been a grin months ago.

"But I wasn't enough of a good one for you to want to stay," and the words are out of her mouth before she can really process them.

That was entirely not what she wanted to say; hell, she didn't even know she was thinking it until now. She has a great new life, even though she has to remind herself that every so often, during the too-serene candlelit dinners with Ryan and the way he sometimes closes his eyes as they're making love and mouths another woman's name into her hair. She can't blame him; it's his dead wife's name.

Auggie remains quiet, and the silence only serves to unnerve her. Since when is she unnerved around Auggie?

"No, you weren't," he agrees, minutes or hours later. "I couldn't stay with you, because every time I even thought about you, all I could hear was gunshots in that fucking elevator and everything that came after that. That's what you reminded me of. Death and destruction."

She nods even though he can't see her. She can expect that much. She knows it just as well as he does. She's tried to make herself better, though, and that has to count for something.

"But that, and I think of everything that happened, that's not the worst part," Auggie lets out a quiet laugh under his breath as he shakes his head. His body sways in a way that lets Annie know he's far from sober. She almost wants to discredit anything he says because of the booze, but he's talking to her and that's a good start. She's worried that if she stops him, he won't start talking again. It's selfish, and she knows it, but she misses his voice, even it its raspy and slurred present state.

"In my memories, on the good days, you were sunshine and driving my Corvette too fast down an empty road and the best parts of life that I can't always remember." He takes another long pull from the whiskey bottle and she notes that he doesn't offer her any.

They sit in silence, Annie mostly stunned at his confession, but to be fair, she wasn't exactly discreet either. They have more than their fair share of shit to work through.

"Come on," she instructs as she hops off the bed and around to Auggie's side. "My hotel room is clean and you need a shower and to sober the fuck up."

Auggie is far from prude, but he grabs a pair of mostly clean boxers and a tshirt from his drawer before taking Annie's elbow and walking with her across the hall. Annie takes a deep breath of fresh air in the hallway and hears Auggie do the same.

She leaves him in her shower and hopes that the hot water could wash away at least some of his demons. He emerges from the bathroom in a puff of steam and skims his hand along the wall of her hotel room.

"Stay," she says, begs, because she doesn't trust that he won't run. He sighs and curls up next to her, respectfully distant.

"It's not the same, Annie. Nothing can be the same between us," he murmurs.

As she lies in the bed with Auggie, the man she still loves in some way, she can't help but agree. After all, she's blatantly lying to the man back home who loves her unconditionally. Nothing is the same.


	6. Chapter 6

Annie wakes when the bed dips a little too aggressively. She's been getting better at sleeping through the night when she's with Ryan, but the prospect of being in an unfamiliar location brings up her old spy instincts. She stays stock still but moves her eyes to the source of the jostling.

Auggie. Right. In her bed. In a hotel in Sri Lanka.

"Hey," she whispers and her voice is raspy. Auggie takes a deep breath and lets it out in an exhale that shudders his shoulders.

"Hey." It's simple enough but he still doesn't turn around to look at her from his seated place on the side of her bed. "I shouldn't be in your bed, Annie."

She wants to laugh because he shouldn't be in Sri Lanka to begin with, but his life is so much different now than when she knew him. She doesn't think she can still joke with him like she used to, their constant teasing that always bordered on flirtatious, even in the beginning. Those times are laughably simple now.

"Your room was a fucking disaster. I'm surprised you could even find your bed," she counters smoothly and sits up. "Also didn't realize whiskey was your choice beverage."

He snorts a laugh. "It doesn't have any memories with it. Vodka is Tash's. Patron is yours. No one claimed whiskey, so I figured I could use it to get rid of any thoughts of..."

Auggie trails off and Annie pick up on the lost connotation. Whiskey doesn't remind him of her or Tash.

"Were you planning on drinking yourself to death?"

"Oh, god no," he states confidently. She feels her heart plummet because his tone is not a kind or gentle one. "It would take too long for my liver to give out. I wanted to blow my brains out, but it's a bit more difficult than you would believe to try to find a gun when you're drunk all the time."

"How fucking _dare_ you?" Annie abruptly stands, suddenly both exasperated and angry at everything in sight. "After all the shit that you've gone through, a girl leaves you and you suddenly want to die? Get a fucking grip, Auggie."

Auggie turns to face Annie's direction and she wishes they could have a normal conversation like they used to. The sentiment almost knocks her to her feet. She's missed him so much and the last thing she expected to find was this parody of Auggie's old self.

"Really, Annie? You're giving me a lecture on properly handling my emotions? You don't even know what I've been through. If you knew half the shit I went through, you would personally load the gun for me," he sneers and it's an ugly look on his face.

"Why don't you enlighten me, Auggie? _Nothing but the truth_, right? Or did that only apply with dead girlfriends?"

It's a low blow and they both know it by the way Auggie flinches back. "That's just great, Annie. I forgot how great of a _friend_ you are."

He stands and heads for the front door before Annie grabs his bicep and shoves him against the wall of her hotel room. She's closer to him than she has been in ages and suddenly she has no idea what to do.

Her instinct is to kiss him, but that would be ridiculous and completely uncalled for. It wouldn't do for anything, because she's with Ryan. She chose Ryan and she would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Right?

"You need to let me go, Annie," Auggie says with nothing but steel in his voice. "I really appreciate you checking in on me, but go and tell Barber that I'm doing just peachy."

"I didn't say it was Barber, you know," Annie counters but takes a step back anyway.

"It was Barber," Auggie acknowledges confidently. "Though why he didn't just find me himself is beyond me. Guess he's busy, like those folks with jobs sometimes are."

So that's the root of his problems, Annie thinks. "What's your problem, Auggie? What is your actual problem? And don't say it's me showing up, because we both know that's not it."

Auggie runs his hand through his hair and focuses his glare above Annie's left shoulder. "My problem is that this is it. I've got nothing left and I'm somehow supposed to cope with that."

She's startled at his honesty; she really thought he would brush off her question.

"You cope how you always do. You put one foot in front of the other, every single day, and soon enough, it'll stop being so shitty." She would know, she's been doing that since she came back from Hong Kong. Arguably, she's been doing it her whole life.

Auggie brushes past her and she's worried that he is planning to leave, but he just collapses back onto the bed. The dark circles under his eyes and his unkempt hair make him look a thousand years old.

"I'm just tired of walking, I'm tired of moving my feet, and I'm tired of waiting for things to get less shitty," he confesses and she understands, painfully so. He rolls over on the bed and she figures that's the end of their conversation for now. But at least he's still here. She realizes that he doesn't have his cane in her room anyway, and maybe not even his room key. Definitely not any whiskey, which is probably the only good thing about being in the room.

Annie starts to walk to the shower when Auggie's voice rings out. "Do you love him?"

She only hesitates for a moment. "More than I've ever loved anyone else."


	7. Chapter 7

The warm water washes over Annie and she brushes her wet hair back from her eyes. Squirting out a sizable amount of shampoo from the mini hotel bottle and gulping in the calming scent of eucalyptus, she tries to think about what she's supposed to do now. She doesn't even recognize the Auggie that's just a few feet and a wall away from her. He isn't anything like the solid friend and partner she had back in her Agency days.

Briefly, cynically, almost heartlessly, she wonders if this is the same Auggie as after the explosion that took his sight. Even worse, her mind betrays her and tells her to run, to leave, to go as far away as fast as possible. She wasn't lying when she said she had a good life with Ryan. Was it the life she wanted to lead forever? She doesn't have the answer to that, not definitively anyway, because sometimes she just gets so bored with domesticity that she feels like calling Joan and taking her up on that long-forgone offer.

Annie rinses the rest of the suds from her body and wraps a fluffy towel around her waist. She wipes the steam from the mirror and takes a good hard look at herself. It's an uphill battle from here on out, and right now is the only time that she could even feasibly walk away. It would make her a terribly disgraceful friend, but her mission was to find Auggie and report back on his well-being. She can't honestly conclude that he's doing well, but he is alive. If she wants to walk away from it all and go back to her cozy, albeit mundane, life in D.C., she needs to make that decision now before she tries to help Auggie.

She's ashamed of her thoughts, of course, but Auggie doesn't need her abandonment. _Again_, her mind reminds her, and every other time she walked away and left Auggie on his own flashes before her eyes. Annie wants to laugh, because despite giving these thoughts fair consideration, her decision had been made the second she booked her flight to Sri Lanka. Everything else was a formality and a natural continuation of every emotion she has ever felt for Auggie.

It's not love anymore, not in the way they had when they were dating, but she can't fairly discount that possibility from ever happening again. She loves Ryan, without a doubt, but the more time she spends away from him, the more she notices how the spark of attraction from their dangerous operations together is missing. Annie doesn't quite know what to do with that.

The sun is streaming through the open curtains on the far side of the room and Auggie is leaning against the open sliding balcony door when she exits the bathroom.

"How long are you planning to be here?" He asks and she's relieved that there isn't any venom in his tone. A twinge of annoyance, maybe, but she already knows that's because he sees her presence more as a babysitter than a caring friend.

Squeezing out the excess water from her hair, Annie sits down on the disheveled bed. The bed that they shared last night. It's somehow both been too long and not long enough. They aren't in a decent place, and she's well aware of the part that she played in that. Annie opts for politeness, hoping for some kind of reciprocation.

"I didn't buy a return ticket," she offers. They're both spies, no matter how removed from the game, but it doesn't take a spy to hear the non-response to his actual question. "But I'm willing to go back whenever."

Auggie glances briefly in her direction, turning his head away from the light breeze ruffling his hair. "If I told you to leave right now, would you leave? Would you go back to D.C. and never look for me again?"

"Is that what you're asking of me?"

* * *

**Author's Note: Thank you for reading and reviewing!**


	8. Chapter 8

Auggie turns his face back to the breeze flowing through the Sri Lankan air. It may be his imagination, but it's almost as if he can feel the cleansing ocean salt against his skin. It's a good feeling, refreshing. Open and pure in a way that he hadn't remembered having in months. Despite the ocean being on the other side of his hotel walls, all he can remember is darkness and the closest to death he has ever come. That's saying something, given his personal and professional history.

Annie steps closer and suddenly the saltwater air merges with citrus and spice and he wants to laugh because the only constant he has when it comes to Annie is her choice in perfume. It's been minutes without an answer to her question, he realizes.

He has the word _yes_ on the tip of his tongue, just to see what would happen. The curiosity is almost overwhelming; he wants to know how invested she is in staying with him. Obviously more invested than Tash, but Annie has her own life now. She's doing just fine without him, probably even better without him, but he can't let himself drive her away. Not yet, not when he feels like his head is almost back above the water.

"I'm not asking you to do anything," he answers, voice steady and hard, and he prays that she can't tell that the tone is forced. She may be the best spy he's ever worked with, but he's a better liar, that much is certain. Or at least it _was_ certain. He knows better than to underestimate Annie Walker.

Annie pulls the balcony door open further and slides out past him. He follows her movement and allows his left hand to skim for a chair until it hits wicker, then lowers himself to the seat cushion. Annie hasn't made a noise, so he has no idea what direction she's facing. He doesn't feel rude not looking in her general direction if he doesn't know if she's looking at him. Instead, he follows the scent of the ocean waves and tries to separate it from Annie.

"You know what Joan told me when she tried to bring me on to her major task force?" Annie breaks the silence and waits a beat. He doesn't know if he was supposed to answer, but she continues anyway. "She said that I was 'dyed in the wool CIA', a rising star on my way to becoming a constellation. I used to think she was right."

Annie's facing him, probably in a chair perpendicular to his own. Auggie hears the strain in her voice. No matter what he does, he would never be able to make that go away. If anything, he's made it worse.

"You were one of the best that the Agency had to offer. You know that," Auggie replies, managing again to say something without actually saying anything at all.

"Ryan said I burned too brightly too quickly," she counters with a snort that could maybe be interpreted as a laugh, cynical as it was.

He manages to hide the wince at the mention of McQuaid's name, the casual way it fell from Annie's lips. As much as it bothers him, he agrees with Ryan. Annie was good, too good, too strong for anything that could be encapsulated by the missions he was her handler for. From the first time he met her, Auggie wholeheartedly believed that she would either die in the field or make it as Director in her own department.

The possibility of Annie leaving the Agency never crossed his mind, not until it was already done. Not until she was so far gone he had no hope of catching her.

"From what Joan said, from what I heard from everyone, you were too, Auggie," Annie intones softly, wistfully. Auggie wants to disagree, but he knows it's true. Bragging rights aside, he was _damn_ good at what he did. "But in the end, this is where we ended up. Two rising stars, fucked up beyond repair, off the grid in a fancy hotel in Sri Lanka."

Auggie isn't completely sure what point she's trying to make, reiterating just how far they've fallen. Or him, at least. Annie still has her life together. "Would you have preferred a shitty hostel?"

Annie lets out a surprised genuine laugh at that, and Auggie tilts his lips up into the closest he has come to a real smile in months.

"Auggie," Annie sighs and his mind automatically races back to a time ages ago when she sighed his name in a much different context. "This isn't where we were supposed to end up. I don't know where we are meant to be, but it sure as hell isn't here."

His face closes up, cross at her words and the implication that he should be more than he is. It's the same feeling he had immediately after Tikrit, when he was surrounded by false cheer and forced encouragement from his family and his trainers. In the same way, Annie is doing her best, and he has to understand that, has to accept it. Auggie knows on a fundamental level that she's trying to help him, but he doesn't want to come to terms with his life yet.

It's irrational, but he wants to wallow. It's not like he has anything but time anyway.

"Don't start with me, Anderson," Annie scoffed. Clearly, she could still read his expressions. "If you don't want my help now, then I'm going to leave."

Auggie hears the resolution in her voice and he has no doubt that she actually would. It seems cold, but he's been in her position. Of everyone in the world, he still understands her the best.


	9. Chapter 9

Annie dresses in a breezy skirt and silk tank top before padding to where Auggie stands by the open balcony door. They are shrouded in careful silence, perfectly balancing between the emotions that threaten to leave the safety of their own minds, and she doesn't quite want to break the serenity just yet.

Fortunately, she doesn't have to.

"Do you ever think about ending all of this? Just this whole life?" Auggie asks without a hint of hesitation in his voice. If it had come from anyone else, anyone who hadn't been through what Auggie has, Annie would have flinched at the casual sound of such a dark question.

"Yes, I do. And I can't imagine a single spy who doesn't," Annie replies after a moment. She reaches for Auggie's hand and it's comforting when he squeezes her fingers briefly. She ignores the flares of heat that shoot up her arms and into the depths of her soul. "That doesn't mean we should give in to those thoughts, though."

"I don't know how you're supposed to help me, Walker," he diverts the conversation, seemingly satisfied in knowing that his self-loathing can be matched in someone who used to be so pure. "I don't know if I even want your help. I want to figure this out on my own."

Annie lets him talk out his thoughts and she fights the urge to wrap him in her arms and never let go. That's not who they are. That's not who they have been for ages, lifetimes and eternities ago.

"I don't know what I want in life," Auggie sighs finally. He roughly runs his hand through his too long hair and tilts his face up towards the sky. "But I think I need to leave here. Can't say this place has the greatest memories. You know, for either of us."

He takes a moment to shoot her a look and Annie's heart jumps. She remembers that boyish charm and a light laugh tumbles out of her mouth.

"Well, I'm with you," Annie agrees. Her mind is whirling and she's begging her heart to calm down. She wants Auggie to be happy. This version of Auggie is so far from that. She wishes she knew what he needed, that he knew what he needed. Wishing won't change anything, though, and the only thing she can do is let Auggie live his own life.

Auggie reaches out his hand and Annie readily ignores the slight tremble in his fingertips and grasps them firmly instead.

"You need help, Auggie, and I don't think I can give it to you," Annie murmurs. He looks away in what Annie fears is shame. He doesn't disagree, so that is a start.

"Do you trust me?" Annie questions. He doesn't need to say a word for her to see the answer. It might have been far past their time working together, but the trust they built from the moment they first met hasn't wavered.

"With my life."

So they do what they did best together as a team, as agent and handler. They plot their escape route. They keep their focus on their survival.

As they stand in their embrace for what feels like an eternity, the rest of the airport swirls and flies around them.

"So you're going home?" Annie feels him nod, slowly, deliberately. He changes his mind, though, maybe acting involuntarily, and shakes his head once.

"Back to D.C.," he corrects and he doesn't have to clarify. She knows what he means. Washington had been home to him for years, but when the world is so far tilted and turned around, it's hard to identify the place you belong. "What about you, Walker?"

"The problem is, Auggie, nothing has felt like home to me in a long time," Annie murmurs against his neck. If she's being completely honest with herself, nothing has felt like home since a guest house and Fourth of July cupcakes and a red Volkswagen. Or a dead ficus and a Corvette and–"

Auggie cuts her off. "You will find it again. Home. Whether it's with Ryan or someone else. You'll find home and so will I. Otherwise there's no purpose in trying to live this life."

* * *

They will see each other again, months or years or decades later. Time will stop and the world will fall away and it will just be the two of them, dancing together in a ballroom with time frozen around them.

When Annie and Auggie meet again, it's a new lifetime for both of them.

Maybe this life will treat them more kindly.


End file.
